The Extra

by A. B. Yehoshua

  “In other words, the future here is not secure, is full of danger.”

  “No.” She raises her voice. “Who am I to presume to know what will be here in the future? Who am I to decide if the danger is real or exists only in newspaper articles? My parents conceived me during a terrible, shocking war, and still the two of them didn’t presume to know. Oy, Uriah, you won’t get free of a disobedient love if you keep rehashing old stuff.”

  He smiles, and she knows, as in times gone by, that tough talk on her part doesn’t deter him; it makes him want her more. He cautiously leans over the bed and tugs one of its levers, listens to the buzzing motor, watches the pillows rise. Then he turns to her and gently says:

  “Then there’s no point in discussing your music.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Still . . . it’s very important to you.”

  “In the right proportion. But there’s nothing about music that precludes having children.”

  “So I shouldn’t even try to complain again about your harp.”

  “No. It makes me angry.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s no truth to it. We talked about the harp so many times, one could write a book about it. I never saw myself as a tormented artist whose life is enslaved to her art. Bach had twenty children, and that didn’t prevent him from writing a new cantata every day. In my case all the more so, because I don’t write music but just perform it.”

  “Bach didn’t give birth to them or nurse them or take care of them. His wife did that.”

  “You’re being clever to escape.”

  “From what?”

  “From the slavery your love wanted to impose on me.”

  “On you or on me?”

  “No difference. To enslave me, you wanted to be enslaved to me.”

  “But you could always have gotten free.”

  “Only so long as we didn’t have children.”

  “Why? If you wanted, children or no children, you could have gotten free of me.”

  “No. Because in your anger and humiliation the children would have become hostages, and you would have harmed them.”

  “Harmed them? But they’re my kids too.”

  “As revenge because I abandoned you . . . I took pity on them by not giving birth to them.”

  “But what could I have done to them?”

  “Medea slew her children as revenge on the husband who abandoned her.”

  “That’s mythology. What could I have done?”

  “Maybe thrown one of them from the roof, and yourself too.”

  “I can’t believe that such a thought ever occurred to you.”

  “From the moment you began to call me Venus and not Noga, even as a joke, I understood what a dangerous place your love had reached.”

  “Didn’t you tell me that your father always told you to look in the sky for the planet that belonged to you?”

  “But who asked you to follow in his footsteps? No, I didn’t want to be Venus, not for you or for anyone. I was born in this apartment with neighbors around me for whom the only myth is simple, old-time religion. I wasn’t named Noga after a planet in the sky, but for a grandmother who died a long time ago. And I chose the harp not because I wanted to play in the Temple, but because not many people play it, so I knew I wouldn’t have much competition. But a young woman from a modest home and neighborhood, a pretty woman but certainly not beautiful, a reasonable and rational woman but not unusually talented, turned for you into a figure of adoration, a religion.”

  “Religion?”

  “Your own private one.”

  “And in this religion there is no room for children?”

  “They are in danger.”

  He gives up, shaken and perhaps gratified by the blow she landed on him. He points to the electric bed, its sheets tangled, and asks almost in a whisper whether in the months she has lived here by herself this has been her bed.

  “Not the only one. At night I wander from bed to bed.”

  “And last night?”

  “Last night I slept in this one too.”

  “Will it bother you if I lie in it a bit?”

  “But a minute ago, when I suggested you try it, you asked if I was crazy.”

  “I was wrong, Noga, I was wrong.”

  And he takes off his shoes and lies on the bed on his back, fiddling with the levers until he finds a comfortable position, tucks his fists under his graying head and closes his eyes, his arms like a pair of wings spread on either side.

  Forty

  DOES HE INTEND to fall asleep now? she asks herself, moving a chair to the head of the bed. So as not to spoil the odd serenity that has come over her guest, she speaks in a low voice, but precisely, as if playing a musical score. A mere four days now separate her and her orchestra, and the desire to clasp the harp to her heart is so strong it hurts.

  “After all, we kept reexamining ourselves. When your mother was still alive, we ended up discussing it frankly with your parents. A confused and fruitless conversation. Because how could your parents express understanding for what I did if I had a hard time explaining it to myself? And because of their anger and pain, you sprang to my defense, you were afraid your parents would start hating me. But they didn’t, not only because it’s hard to hate me, and not only because they already had three grandchildren from your sister, but because they couldn’t imagine you leaving me, and in order not to poison your marriage, they decided from the outset not to hate me.”

  She presses the point. “Why didn’t they believe you were capable of leaving me? Maybe because your parents, whose marriage was full of bumps and bickering, grasped the big difference between them and their son—your ability to love passionately, a love that to this day can’t die and simmers between us, amazingly enough, even at this very moment.”

  “Yes,” he mutters, his eyes still closed, “which is why I overcame my indecision and came here.”

  “You vacillated but you came. And even if we’ve analyzed our separation so many times that not one but two books could be written on the subject, nevertheless, after years of no contact, after you’ve remarried and had children, you go searching for me in the desert and sneak in as an extra in the uniform of a wounded soldier. So we need to clarify if this is just stubborn love or something else.”

  “It’s something else.”

  “Yes, so perhaps today it’ll be something else, something new. But you should know that if you surprised yourself when you came here, you didn’t surprise me. I waited for you. My mother can testify that I told her I knew you wouldn’t be content with playing the wounded extra, that you’d have the nerve to come to this apartment, that you might still have a key. I do know you. But even if you hadn’t dared to come here this morning as yourself, you should know that in my mind I am still in conversation with you. And I have thoughts that haven’t yet been expressed.”

  “Those two books notwithstanding.”

  “There may be the need for a third, a thin one, like a book of poetry. In Europe, when I thought of you—at rehearsals, or at concerts, since there are works with long stretches where the harpist has nothing to do except sit on her hands and count the measures while other players were making music—your image would suddenly surface, and I would reconstruct you in my mind, or recycle you, if that word better fits your ideology.”

  “Both words fit.”

  “And I’d be drawn back to the beginning. That party in Rehavia, how you insisted on walking me home through the Valley of the Cross, and at midnight, near the monastery, the way you kissed me. That wasn’t the first time I kissed a man, and certainly not the first time you kissed a woman, but you managed to make it momentous, because the next day, after my classes at the academy—which in those days, you remember, was near the prime minister’s house—without our having made plans, and I hadn’t mentioned my class schedule—you, in your army uniform, waited for me on your motorcycle with an extra helmet—”

  “They had just pass
ed the helmet law—”

  “Of course, the law. And later on, during the intense courtship, you quickly learned not only my class schedule but also the times of the private piano and recorder lessons I gave around town, the addresses and the names of the children. Little by little you collected the names of my friends, male and female, and my relatives, and you tried to become friendly with them. Not to mention my parents, and especially my brother, who truly fell in love with you. After all, you’re talented, with a quick mind, and when you make the effort, you’re not devoid of humor. From the beginning I felt you were destined for greatness. Don’t be offended, but when you told me you were now head of a department, I felt a twinge of disappointment that you were not head of the whole thing. If it were up to me, I’d have appointed you long ago.”

  “With total objectivity.”

  “Total. From the minute we began our courtship you proved yourself, to me at least, to be a smart and efficient manager of transportation and errands and shopping, including active participation in clothes shopping, and dispensing advice at every opportunity on what to wear and what not to wear. And so your love was enthralling, but it began to tie me down. Not your occasional jealousy, which was only natural—mine too—because without it, love life isn’t genuine. But you, with warmth and tenderness, began to swallow me.”

  “Swallow?”

  “Siphon me inside of you.”

  “Sounds even worse.”

  He moves the levers and the bed slowly rises, tilts him to the side and sets him on his feet. With a troubled look he leaves the room and wanders through the apartment as if seeking refuge. Finally he brings a chair from the kitchen, sits down facing her and mutters, “This book . . . the third one . . . the thin one . . . is indeed turning into poetry, less and less understandable.”

  “Be patient,” she says softly, “and it will become accessible, especially to a man as intelligent as you. Even before we got married, when we lived in Jerusalem, in the apartment near the museum, and you were on your pre-discharge leave from the army, you said I came to you spoiled or lazy, from a home that was too loving, and for this dubious reason you cheerfully took upon yourself most of the chores—cooking, paying bills, cleaning, shopping—so I would be free for music, studies, private lessons and of course performances. I sometimes think that the seed of failure was planted during that period, when you had plenty of time to learn about your lover mentally and physically, not only so you’d know how to live with her day to day, but to gently appropriate her into yourself.”

  “Appropriate—another annoying word.”

  “Is there a word that won’t annoy you? Assimilate? Internalize. There, a moderate word that won’t annoy you. You tried to internalize me, and that way I wouldn’t be a burden on you. I would enrich you.”

  “Not internalize or assimilate.” He gets up and begins pacing around the room. “Precisely the opposite. I was only trying to protect you.”

  “Protect me?”

  “Look, Noga, just as I sometimes surface between the notes when you’re listening to other musicians play, in long and boring meetings you sometimes poke through the tedious talk of other people, and despite the fact that I have my beloved wife and children, to whom I am devoted with all my heart, I, like you, reconstruct you sometimes in my mind. And even when I reaffirm for myself, over and over, my decision to leave you, it’s natural that I’m occasionally curious about what’s happening, and if the harp is still alive.”

  “The harp?”

  “Yes, the harp.”

  “The harp is alive and playing.”

  “Because once I came to understand that this instrument was not a compromise, not a steppingstone to another instrument, but an expression of your inner essence, possibly meant to fulfill a mission that you believe was given to you—”

  “That’s surprising, Uriah, that’s a new one—”

  “See, I can also contribute something original to the thin book. The minute you told me, Noga, that your instrument was the harp, it added to your charm, but I was also worried about the harp—I mean about you—I mean me. In other words, the question arose, how to integrate the harp into my life. Because from that very first kiss I knew the die was cast and I wouldn’t let you go until you became not just my lover but my wife, and so the harp would need to be included in that love and commitment.”

  “Naturally. And I must admit that regarding the harp, you proved to be a partner and honored your commitment.”

  “On the outside, Noga, so as not to hurt or demoralize you. It was out of my love and devotion. Because, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t believe in the harp, nor did the sound do much for me. I also didn’t think—you’ll forgive me—that you had a special talent for it. All this, and also the trouble caused by its shape and weight. I always had to be ready to move it from place to place, even a few centimeters. And add to that the hassle of the big old unpleasant car we needed for it. And how bored I got when I had to go with you to far-off places, to all kinds of ceremonies at out-of-the-way schools or community centers, dozens of kilometers round trip to play for ten minutes for a pitiful fee, just so you wouldn’t lose faith in yourself and would feel like an artist in demand.”

  “That’s the new contribution to the thin book?”

  “That’s just the beginning.”

  “Everything you’ve said up till now seems trivial coming from a man who claimed I was his heart and soul.”

  “Trivial and easy for a devoted lover like me, whose love added power to his muscles when he had to carry the harp up and down the thirty-two steps of our apartment in Jerusalem, before we moved to Tel Aviv and found the noisy flat on the ground floor.”

  “But on the ground floor it was much easier, because we could move it from there in its harp cart.”

  “Only relatively so, compared to our place in Jerusalem. Even when the harp would roll in its cart straight from the apartment, I always thought that if it were a baby, it would be easier and nicer for me.”

  “Maybe, but at least my harp didn’t cry at night.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  “Your new and original idea has now become stupid.”

  “Be patient,” he says, softly repeating her words, “and it will become accessible to a person as intelligent as you. And so, after you were rejected by every Israeli orchestra you applied to, I didn’t want you to lose self-confidence, so I didn’t criticize. But I was bitter inside and even angry that you had picked an unconventional instrument, heavy and clumsy and lonesome and unwanted in many works of music. An ancient instrument, religious, ritualistic, even mythological, which you were maybe attracted to because of the Orthodox people who lived around you in your childhood.”

  “The Orthodox around me didn’t play any instruments.”

  “Precisely. And so you decided to play instead of them, or for them, with a type of instrument that fits their tradition and maybe also their dreams.”

  “Oh, Uriah.” She laughs. “That’s not only new, it’s ridiculous. I can’t believe a thought like that ever entered your head.”

  “Wait, wait.” He touches her lightly to hold her attention. “You asked me to write in the thin third book, so be prepared, as in poetry, to expose the truth concealed in absurdity. After all these years we’ve been apart, I see you still have that sweet, fragile, delicate, girlish quality that stole my heart from the minute I met you. And though your hands have grown stronger and your fingers are flexible from playing, I still ask myself how you manage on your own, in a foreign country, with your heavy and cumbersome instrument.”

  “It became less heavy and cumbersome after I separated from you. And you, even if you wheeled it and lifted it, and even if eventually you understood how to tune it, don’t think you knew all about it.”

  “Not about it, about you, because from the first moment you were my musical instrument. So now when I remember that Hasid who didn’t mind that you played on Shabbat because he hoped you would someday play in the Temple, a s
tory you told me over and over—”

  “Yes, I admit it, I sometimes repeat myself, but that’s how I hold on to a childhood that was good and happy, as opposed to your gloomy childhood.”

  “Forget my childhood now and listen. Your story is not just another charming childhood tale to remember fondly, but a story with a meaning that I always sensed without being able to put my finger on it, until I saw your excitement just now when your childhood sweetheart brought you a little boy and some fruit. This was the one you talked to on the stairs, hour after hour, in total freedom and openness.”

  “And if I was once in love with a gentle boy who was open to the world, whose face was still bare and smooth—”

  “So perhaps it was for him that you decided to devote yourself to an ancient and ritualistic instrument his father couldn’t give him.”

  “For him?” She laughs. “After such a long separation you’ve come up with a new jealousy? And by the way, since you insist on going back to my old story, why leave out its bizarre ending?”

  “What ending?”

  “His father told me that to play in the Temple, the girl would have to turn into a handsome lad.”

  “No, Noga, I couldn’t forget the ending of that story, which you also clung to. But what I’m asking now is whether you sometimes toy with the possibility of turning into a handsome lad?”

  “Why would I?”

  “So as not to give birth to a child.”

  “No. Absolutely not. Though I didn’t want a child forced on me, I wanted a child born out of the thought and will and agreement of its two parents.”

  “And that’s why you secretly aborted the child that came by accident.”

  “Secretly, because I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “But that hurt me more.”

  “Because you were looking for pain and insult. And for many long months after you learned about the abortion, you decided to punish me and yourself and deny your sexual desire. But you didn’t succeed in denying it, just in poisoning it, and when you got tired of denial it was too late. Your poison also poisoned my desire.”